• @lordnikon
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    731 month ago

    Dennis Richie is a personal hero of mine and i go out of my way to buy a cake every September 9th to celebrate his contributions to the world. It’s a real shame his passing was overshadowed at the time.

  • Annoyed_🦀 🏅
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    511 month ago

    Got me confused on which goat have such interesting name, turn out it’s GOAT not goat.

      • @[email protected]
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        1 month ago

        B was based on BCPL, which I assume is where the name came from.

        But the actual A language would be APL, which stands for A Programming Language. It’s a few years older than B and was pretty popular, so it could’ve influenced the name.

        • Handles
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          1 month ago

          A Programming Language

          Gotta admire the wherewithal of continuing down the alphabet rather than just “Another Programming Language”, through “Yet Another Programming Language” to “Dude, Where’s My Programming Language”.

        • @[email protected]
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          11 month ago

          It is hard for me to believe APL was popular. I forgot that Microsoft claimed to be making it for Motorola and Intel.

      • @lordnikon
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        21 month ago

        Ada would be a good stand in for A based on the historical context of the name.

  • palordrolap
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    301 month ago

    Should have gone for something like “Dennis Richie Advanced Computing University Lab Annex.”

    Parses weird, but look at that acronym.

    • @[email protected]
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      121 month ago

      AdvanceD.

      Advance computing means it’s computing performed ahead of time - if it means anything at all.

      • @jaybone
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        61 month ago

        This is the future, instructions will be executed before they are run.

        Actually that’s kind of like what CPUs do today with branching.

        • @stellargmite
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          91 month ago

          “ Denis Ritchie Advance ! “, just put an exclamation mark at the end of the first line. More of a declaration .

  • @[email protected]
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    161 month ago

    Programming Languages today: Rust, Go, Typescript

    Programming Languages back then: C, B, C#, C++

    LOL

    • @[email protected]
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      221 month ago

      C# is much more recent than C/BCPL etc. What’s interesting, though, is how many of C these more modern languages are inspired by C. C is also very much still in use!

      • @[email protected]
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        111 month ago

        The name C++ is an inside joke as ++ is the C language increment operator, meant to imply that C++ is an improvement on C.

        I have heard several times that the name C# was meant to look like the ++ had been added again to the name C++. The syntax of C# was chosen to be familiar to programmers that knew C++.

        If we are saying old languages use letters for names and that newer ones use words, it is worth noting that C# was also heavily inspired by Java, which came first. Both Java and JavaScript are from 1995 ( iolder than C# ).

        In the grand scheme, Go is not much newer than C#. Go is from 2009 and C# is from 2000. That might seem like a lot but Go was intended as an alternative to C which is from 1972.

        C got its name as a progression over B, which started the whole single letter thing, but C syntax was chosen to look like ALGOL ( 1958 ). So we have to blame ALGOL for the look of C, C++, Java, C#, JavaScript, and even Rust.

        Two of the oldest languages as FORTRAN and Lisp. Language names were often abbreviations ( such as FORmula TRANslation for FORTRAN ). Lisp was originally LISP ( list processing ) but the name Lisp, from 1960, fits right in with Go and Rust I would say.

        The trend is certainly towards more whimsical names though. An early name for C was NB which stood for “New B”. If it were named like we do today, maybe it would have been called “Newbie” or some synonym of that. I kind of like Punk.

    • @bi_tux
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      21 month ago

      I think you confuse this man with Richard Stallman

  • Possibly linux
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    -241 month ago

    Why would you name a non American lab after a American? It feels a bit weird.

    • @[email protected]OP
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      271 month ago

      Tell me when youre so passionate about something would you ignore the goat in your domain just because that person is not from the same country as you?